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Beckus Newsletter No 120 – Spring 2021

The brand new issue of Beckus (No. 120) has just been released.

This is the quarterly newsletter for our members.
If you are not yet a member: Just click here!

The contents:

  • Rave reviews for the Dancing Master
  • Saving Malcolm’s papers
  • New Arnold Catalogue
  • Osian Ellis
  • Recording the violin and piano music
  • Alexandra Whittingham
  • Malcolm’s bust to go to RCM
  • Three young composers from 1951
  • The Itter Broadcast Collection
  • Arnold recordings in the Itter archive
  • Rinaldo and Armida – first reviews
  • Arnold and Scotland
  • Simon Heffer celebrates Arnold


A news story appeared on 10 November 2020 about the fate of legal papers and correspondence from Malcolm Arnold when he was a ward of court between 1979 and 1986 owing to poor mental health. Naturally, these would be of interest to future biographers and historians. But the Ministry of Justice did not recognise that the papers should be saved in the National Archives, and they would therefore be destroyed.

The opening paragraph from “Saving Malcolm’s papers”